The story as told in the _Mahâbhârata_ strikes the key‐note, and yet it needs to be explained by the secret sense contained in the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_. It is the _prologue_ to the drama of our (Fifth) Humanity. While Vaivasvata was engaged in devotion on the river bank, a fish craves his protection from a bigger fish. He saves it and places it in a jar; where, growing larger and larger, it communicates to him the news of the forthcoming Deluge. This Fish is the well‐known Matsya Avatâra, the first Avatâra of Vishnu, the Dagon(320) of the Chaldæan Xisuthrus, and many other things besides. The story is too well known to need repetition. Vishnu orders a ship to be built, in which Manu is saved along with the seven Rishis, according to the _Mahâbhârata_; this, however, being absent from other texts. Here the seven Rishis stand for the seven Races, the seven Principles, and various other things; for there is again a double mystery involved in this manifold allegory. We have said elsewhere that the Great Flood had several meanings, and that it referred, as also does the “Fall,” to both spiritual and physical, both cosmic and terrestrial, events: as above, so it is below. The Ship or Ark—Navis—in short, being the symbol of the female generative Principle, is typified in the heavens by the Moon, and on Earth by the Womb; both being the vessels and bearers of the seeds of life and being, which the Sun, or Vishnu, the male Principle, vivifies and fructifies. The First Cosmic Flood refers to Primordial Creation, or the formation of Heaven and the Earths; in which case Chaos and the great Deep stand for the “Flood,” and the Moon for the “Mother,” from whom proceed all the life‐germs.(321) But the Terrestrial Deluge and its story has also its dual application. In one case it has reference to that mystery when mankind was saved from utter destruction, by the mortal woman being made the receptacle of the human seed at the end of the Third Race,(322) and in the other to the real and historical Atlantean Submersion. In both cases the “Host”—or the Manu which saved the “seed”—is called Vaivasvata Manu. Hence the diversity between the Paurânic and other versions; while in the _Shatapatha Brâhmana_, Vaivasvata produces a daughter and begets from her the race of Manu—a reference to the first human Manushyas, who had to create women by Will (Kriyâshakti), before they were naturally born from the Hermaphrodites as an independent sex, and were, therefore, regarded as their creator’s “daughters.” The Paurânic accounts make Idâ, or Ilâ, the wife of Budha (Wisdom). This version refers to the events of the Atlantean Flood, when Vaivasvata, the great Sage on Earth, saved the Fifth Root‐Race from being destroyed along with the remnants of the Fourth. This is shown very clearly in the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, where Krishna is made to say: